Mermaid Artist Trading Cards

Planning a 2 year celebration for Coastal Bohemian was fun and exciting and a wee bit hectic. 

The plan was to have a party day with plenty of giveaways , free crafts and celebration cake!!!
Everyone loves free crafts and food. Right? The challenge is to find a craft that is low cost , different , memorable , fun  and maybe a new craft for the guests. If we can provide a new exciting and unique experience over a 2 hour period we create friends. It's just an inevitable consequence of happy craft time. (God I love my job.)


Since the studio is near the beach in Myrtle Beach I always try to create nautical beachy themes, plus seeing as how the name of the company is Coastal Bohemian, you can imagine that mostly , my theme is beachy and nautical. That works.

I  had picked up this Stampendous  Mermaid stamp at Michael's a while ago . I knew she was my  star for the craft day. 

Artist trading cards are not something the average crafter is familiar with and I knew we could pull these off low cost and make this a very special experience in mixed media art. Bingo.

 I'll take you through my sample card.

I painted a base color paint on an ordinary trading card.

After that dries,

swipe on an additional color in a different direction. It's just a swipe to create a bit of interest.

Decoupage a bit of torn vintage paper to begin to build some background interest. I get old books at my local Library book sales for like $1.00 or $.50.

Next, I added a bit of fisherman's net , the real stuff. Just cut a piece to fit the card and use a good amount of Mod Podge to adhere the net. You'll need to coat the card with Mod Podge, add the net, Mod Podge over the top. Blow dry to speed up dry time,  of course.

I had stamped out  the mermaid image onto card stock. Cutting her out, I had to cut her down a bit to fit the card. 

I used a little gold stamp ink to add a bit of glam to my mermaid image and help her tone down from that heavy bright white of the card stock. I actually used my finger to add the gold ink.

The image was glued onto the net with a glue gun. 

From there add a few small seashells and pearls and of course a Coastal Bohemian quote. I've include a link to this printable for your own mermaid cards. feel free to get nautical and beachy with these.

To complete the card we add a backside of information. Here's a printable of the one we used. 

CB Trading Card Info backside

Here are a few cards and pics from our party day. 

Thanks for popping in to check out these little works of art. 

BTW...check around the internet for artist trading cards, they are highly collectible and swapped around the world. To swap cards, people join card swap locations and swap on a regular basis. 

Hope you enjoyed these cards.

Michele, the original Coastal Bohemian

Baby You're a Firework

These are adorable and make great hostess gifts. I like them as little shelf sitters as well. 

 I hit the reject pile at Home Depot( boy have I gotten some really good deals) and pick up different widths of wood and head back to my shop to cut them down.  These are 6" by 4" and 1" thick .

 Next I use a decorative napkin to create a festive background. This gets applied with a little Mod Podge . Of course I can't wait for this to dry so I usually do a quick blow dry to speed up the drying process.

I used publisher to design a saying and print on standard copy paper. Next I coat the entire paper with vintage wax that I use for my chalk painting. You apply it and then buff it. The wax seals in the ink and now when you adhere the quote with Mod Podge the ink won't bleed onto your project. This is one of the best tricks I have stumbled upon. 

 Cut your aged quotes into starbursts and adhere with Mod Podge.

You can drill holes in the corners and add twine or twisted wire to make these hang-able.

If you have visitors staying over  for the 4th you can hang them on their doors and really get a festive look going.

Thanks again for following along and I hope you feel inspired to do this or something else that may have spring boarded your imagination.

Michele , The Coastal Bohemian